Love is What Matters
by American Punk
Summary: Hermione Granger goes to the Astronomy Tower to take her life, while she's there she learns a very important lesson about life, death, and love from the teacher who has taught her the most. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I don't own it.

Sometimes when I close my eyes to attempt to drift off into even the lightest of dozes the memories of my past come back. They come flooding into my mind like water from a faucet and it's almost as though I am a child again. I feel as though I'm back in that house, a prisoner in what used to be my home. I can smell the salt of my tears or feel a stinging slap to my face and I reel, filled with anguish knowing that I went through what no one should. I can feel my old fear; it is still there, as sure as the sun sets every evening, I still feel the hurt and pain.I hear the jeering words of a drunken man as he pulls my head back by my hair and shouts at me, his putrid alcohol filled breath fills my nostrils as I struggle not to cry. I try just to make it through the day. I see the woman in a corner, whom I so used to admire, with tear-stained cheeks. I realize that though she used to be so strong, she offered up her daughter so she wouldn't be subjected to a husband's wrath. I watch as she sleeps and she gropes blindly as she rests as though trying to grab the tattered remnants of a broken life, hoping against hope that things would suddenly become as they were before. I remember being hit with anything that would hurt me, but worse then all this, I remember the way things were before the pain. The happiness that filled my life before the turmoil, the calm before the tempest, if you will, the time of joy that made the remainder of my life so torturous because I had known what it was like to be cherished.

Everything had changed when I got the letter to Hogwarts. I went from the beloved daughter I had always been to a freak. I thought that when I got to the school it would be normal for me again. I had always had friends, but for some reason people hated me for months. Most of them still do. The only reason I had friends for as long as I did was because Harry and Ron needed someone intelligent off whom they could copy. That was where I came in. Unfortunately for me, they don't need me anymore. Now here I am, alone again. I made absolutely no friends the past six and a half years, and now I have no one. My roommates hate me, but frankly I hate them as well so it doesn't matter. What hurts the most if the fact that my two best friends I've ever had never really cared for me. I have nothing.

That's what's brought me to the astronomy tower at midnight. I have nothing. There's certainly no reason to live. Especially not after the news I got this morning. My poor mother, she never hurt anyone. Her only crime was marriage to my bastard father. It's my fault she's dead. I wasn't there to hinder my father's anger, instead of hurting me he hurt her. She was not as strong as I. She was not as practiced as I am in the art of hurting; she was defenseless. And now she's dead. I don't deserve to live when she's dead because of me.

It's raining, big surprise. It always rains here but this suits my mood just fine. It's a perfect night to die. The wind and the rain swirl around me. I cast my Hogwart's robes aside, I don't want to die wearing clothes from the school that led to my father's anger. I step to the side and prepare myself to jump when someone yanks me back by my arm. My face is crushed into the chest of my would-be savior.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Ms. Granger?"

"Trying to die in peace Professor Snape, obviously that's too much to ask."

I looked in the obsidian eyes of the potion's master. I had sincerely hoped I wouldn't be interrupted. That was the reason for the late hour in which I had decided to die.

"Why would you want to do that you foolish girl?"

"Because dying with a lot of hassle isn't my style. Now if you'll excuse me I have an engagement I'm a bit late for."

I tried to pull away but it was no use. Damn my luck. I can't even commit suicide without someone interfering.

"I heard about your mother—"

"Don't you dare bring that up right now you asinine mother fu—"

"Language, Granger." He cupped my chin forcing my eyes to look into his own. "I wanted to offer my condolences. I know it means nothing to you, particularly not when you are in your current state, but there it is."

"You don't know what it's like. I've been betrayed by my so-called friends and my family." My voice was harsh. "He killed her. My bastard father murdered her in a drunken rage. Do you know what that's like Professor?"

"Yes, I do. My father murdered my mother when I was in my final year at Hogwarts as well."

I checked myself at that fact. He had been through it as well.

"How did you make it through?"

"I joined Voldemort and the league of idiots Ms. Granger. Surely you remember."

"Professor, you're hurting my chin"

He dropped his hand then, and turned his back on me.

"What does it matter? You're going to hurl yourself off the tower aren't you? I guarantee that the slight bruising on your chin will be nothing compared to the rest of your body."

"Professor?" He turned back at the sound of my voice.

"Well, aren't you going to kill yourself, child? Are you so incompetent you cannot do it for yourself? Rest assured I'll have nothing to do with it." He swept me a meaningful look. "I've been involved in enough death to make the devil himself shudder."

This was not what I had expected. I knew he must have had to kill as a deatheater, but to hear him say it. He was a murderer, but he wasn't heartless. He proved that when he stopped me from throwing myself off the tower. He also presented his true self when he had divulged his mother's death to me. There was no mistaking the surge of pain in his ebony eyes as he thought about the mother he too had lost.

"No, I'm not going to kill myself."

He strode forward. "Good. If there's one thing this earth doesn't need, it's another early death of someone who has so much to live for."

He reached out, then pulled back as if he were going to touch me, but thought better of it. He turned abruptly, his cloak swirling gracefully around him.

"I'll see you in class tomorrow, Professor."

He paused momentarily and nodded abruptly.

I didn't want to see him go. This was the only time I could feel anything other than pain. I ran at him hurriedly and grabbed his arm.

"Professor, wait."

He turned and looked at me.

"Yes?"

"I—"

I knew I would probably want to kill myself again after this but I wanted to do it for years. I leaned up to him and pressed my lips to his. The contact of his lips on my own swiftly brought me back to reality. I stepped back quickly.

"I— I'm sorry… I wasn't thinking."

He stared at me in astonishment as I stepped back. The suddenly he swept forward and pulled me into his arms and stared into my eyes. Slowly he lowered his face to mine and kissed me tenderly. I pressed against him and leaned into the kiss. We pulled apart, shaken and he whispered "Aren't you glad you didn't jump?"

"Yes."

It was ten years later and my husband held my hand as we walked to my mother's grave.

Sometimes death brings people together. It certainly did for Severus and I. I didn't have Harry or Ron or even my parents in my life, but I did have him. Love is what matters, not death.

A/N

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